Since the National Service started, there has been a lot of mutterings of apprehensive anticipation. Most of which is exacerbated by the fact that thinking about it feels a bit like walking about in a dark room. There are a few buzzwords thrown in here and there - patriotism, national unity, instilling self-sufficiency in the purportedly over-pampered Malaysian youths of today - but initially, it was hard to glean the facts from what was said about this policy. It seemed to have happened in warp speed, and now, even as we are facing the impact of this national decision, we're still all a bit unsure as to what it's all about.

Some papers have published diaries from the participants at the camp, and that has been helpful to gain some sort of insight on the day-to-day activities. More importantly, it gave a glimpse of what individual participants are feeling about being in that space. This is a significant torchlight to the murky perceptions of the public who are not directly involved.

Yet, the processes in which the policy of National Service became a reality did not actively seek out the opinions and thoughts of those who were directly involved - the young people themselves. Do they think that it's a good idea to spend 3 months of their lives in a training camp; that it is effective to impart upon them love and loyalty to the country; or that it will somehow make them see beyond racial, economic and cultural lines? Were the youths consulted on designing the training modules, selection of trainers and spaces, length of training period, evaluation mechanisms and so forth?

All I can see from media reports are opinions from politicians, concerned adults and parent, analysis from columnists etc. Apart from the journal entries mentioned above, and some articles interviewing what youths think (slipped somewhere in the features or youth section of the paper), the space for young people to speak and contribute meaningfully for the discussion around National Service seems cramped.

Young people are prescribed and described; perhaps tolerated and humoured. Everyone else is just not very good at listening.

What are the young people saying?

If we cannot find the words for failure to create spaces for these words, we can attempt to listen through action. Now there are reported incidences of violence, extortions, substance abuse, sexual harassment, physically and mentally exhaustive conditions and incidents of "hysteria". We also discover that around 10,000 youths have decided to give this policy a miss for one reason or another.

How can we endeavor to read this without already forming predetermined "solutions" that reacts to preconceived assumptions? This is what we seem to be doing. We string them along with carrots of discount cards and badges of honour - implicitly letting young people know that all we understand of them is their love for consumerism, and we are encouraging it. At the same breath, we are placing the blame for "bad" behaviour in socio-economic conditions and drawing a moralistic line between classes - that poor behave badly (they can't help it due to lack of opportunities) and that the middle-income or rich will "naturally" behave better. Again, young people are described without a recognition that they are individuals who have different interpretations of life, or a space to hear and comprehend their diverse experiences.

We place the blame of hysteria on girls who "like to tell ghost stories" and "are having their periods". We demonstrate flagrant sexism instead of examining how we construct hysteria in the first place, what they are feeling, and the conditions of the camps that we have forced them to be in. No, the blame is never on us as adults and organisers. We are on the high seat to only prescribe solutions when "problems" arise - no matter how uninformed we may be.

When the participants seemingly clique on racial lines, we are "surprised" that such an ironic situation could arise. We seem to imagine the National Service as some sort of magical multi-racial/cultural Disneyland that can sort such things out. That the participants will somehow have amnesia of all their prior experiences at school, home, with their friends and in the public when placed in this regimented space. If we force them to mingle, do exercises, have boring lessons on things which we think are important for them to know, of course they will. If they don't, we will label them as "poor", "bad hats", "menstruating", "stupid" (not finishing their SPM), "pampered", "have lack of self-discipline" and "deviant". We will then segregate them and punish them duly.

We naively expect 3 months of this to result in a generation of "truly united Malaysians".

Is this the image of young people that we have in our minds? A lump of malleable plastic that have no will, mind, heart, imagination or wisdom? If so, then National Service is a waste of time and resources - as is education, reproduction and everything else that comes with living in a society through time.

If we seriously do not think so, we really need to clean our ears, adjust our eyes and open our minds to what young people have to say.

Jaclyn Kee
18 April 2004

Relevant Articles:

• NS Trainer held over rape (The News Straits Times, 18 April 2004)
• One NS trainee hospitalised, 31 held over fights (The News Straits Times, 16 April 2004)
• 10,000 NS shirkers to be named in newspapers (The News Straits Times, 16 April 2004)